Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have over 200' of gutters around my house perimeter, with a combination of live oak, water oak, and magnolia trees dumping leaves. The oak flower in the Spring is particularly pernicious and the water oak leaves can get through the small openings in many types of gutter guards. Moreover, squirrels like to run along my gutters and from past experience will push in most of the low budget types of guards. I've tried them all, which led me to this type. These are completely successful keeping roof particles, oak flower, and water oak leaves out of my gutters. Once installed a simple brushing removes any debris that manages to accumulate on top of them (a mail in coupon nets you a free brush). They are also considerably more rugged than the plastic or aluminum mesh ones I've tried previously. Professional reviews and Consumer Reports all favor this type of gutter guard, both for functionality and for durability. I can attest that they live up to the hype and make an attractive installation. The cost is a bit more than $2 per foot, but is a fraction of what a professional installation would cost. Each package has 12 4' (actually 47") sections. Each section is formed as a stainless steel fine mesh screen sandwiched between two aluminum rails, one of which has a T cross section to butt nicely against the front lip of the standard 5" gutter. The construction quality is impressive. The package includes about 50 self-tapping screws and a nut driver socket. The sections are surprisingly rigid, a testament to the quality of the mesh. Difficulty of installation depends on your gutters, easy for gutters attached to a fascia board in standard fashion, more difficult if you have to bend up the the back of each guard to fit your particular gutter installation. Trimming requires a hacksaw to cut through the rails, and either heavy scissors or tin snips to cut the mesh. Fortunately, trimming is only needed where you reach the end of a gutter or around a corner. You also need a drill to install the screws. The mesh has been formed to have small ridges, which helps water sink into the gutter while making the mesh rigid. A small amount of mesh extends off each end for closing off the gap between sections, probably the weakest aspect of the design since the overlap can catch debris. My experience in installing these is that it is non-trivial but straight forward. Bending the mesh as described in the directions slowed me down, a lot. Over 100' of my installation is non-standard, with gutters attached under a 1x2" bumper on the fascia board. That meant I had to bend up the back edge of each section close to the back rail so I could attach it to the bumper. The bending requires some muscle because the mesh is tough stuff. It worked, but is an example of the kind of creative modification needed if your gutter is not a standard installation. A pamphlet comes with the gutters that suggests bends to fit a number of non-standard installations, one of which is the one I just described. If you find yourself a few feet short as I did, you can order single 3' sections of the same gutter from Home Depot for a comparable price. This is a 5 star product because it is effective, durable, and rugged. My only criticism is that it would be nice if the company devised a neater way to join sections rather than just overlapping the screening.